WILMINGTON, Mass. — The salary cap brought on the era of not being able to keep every player a team likes.

That reality hit the Bruins Monday, when they decided to trade Matt Hunwick to Colorado for prospect Colby Cohen. Now head coach Claude Julien is in the position of having to coach a team that should have center Marc Savard back from injury soon, but lacks speed on the back end.

“It was hard to let a guy go like that because he was our best skater back there; probably the guy that you leaned on the most to bring the puck up the ice,” said the coach after his team’s practice at Ristuccia Arena. “I guess the feeling is that our organization feels that there’s a few of those guys that are up-and-coming in the minors and we’ll be able to fill those voids hopefully sooner than later. But we had to make some room. Those are things that are done for the situation of liberating some cap space.”

For now, large defenseman Adam McQuaid will be inserted into the Boston lineup in Hunwick’s place. McQuaid plays a simple game and is more reliant on physicality than speed. Julien says he’s now looking for the guys on the back end to get the puck off their sticks more often.

“I’ve got to put guys in and try to get the most out of them, I guess,” said the coach. “I think Adam McQuaid, to me, has been pretty steady, he’s been physical. He doesn’t have the same elements that Matt Hunwick had. Matt Hunwick is a good skater and could bring the puck up the ice. But he didn’t have the toughness that McQuaid has.

“So you’ve got to play within the strengths, and I think the one thing we want to do is move our puck up the ice as best we can. Sometimes when you don’t have those puck-carriers, you’ve got to have better puck-movers. Our guys have to move the puck a little better. That’s the way I would tell you right now that we’re going to have to compensate with his loss.”

I forgot to add… In that quote above Claude is disassociating himself from this trade. “I guess the feeling” “our organization feels”. That sounds like someone finding out about the trade after the fact and not happy about it.

“I guess the feeling is that our organization feels that there’s a few of those guys that are up-and-coming in the minors and we’ll be able to fill those voids hopefully sooner than later”

Yes I believe the front office would trade someone without consulting the coach. I think they’d do it in an instant. Would they do it every time, no I’m sure 99% of the time they’d let him know, but the coach is just another employee to them, and nothing he was going to say would change that trade. I think they notify more than consult.

First off, PCL, thanks for saving me some time by stating what I would have. What Hunwick was Claude watching? I saw nothing from him, starting with confidence. You can hand a guy all the skill-set you want but, without confidence, it doesn’t mean a thing.
As for Julien’s comments. I think we’re adding our own context here. In the end Claude is a class guy and he’s not gonna rag on an outgoing player. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.
As for calling up D-Men. I’m starting to sound like a broken record but, as a defensemen, the step into the NHL is huge. Look how long and hard it took Boychuck to make the jump and he was an Eddie Shore award winner. Adjusting to the pace alone is difficult. Every mistake you make is magnified at the NHL level. You just don’t get away with anything in the big show.
I will add this to the Julien being upset argument. If he liked his skating game so much, why was he averaging the least ice-time of all of our D (McQuaid excluded)??

Do you actually believe a front office trades a player without consulting the coach? Seriously?

And as someone who’s seen the P-Bruins a few times, I can tell you that Kampfer and Bartkowski aren’t ready. Probably their best D-man at the moment is Bodnarchuk. Next would be Alexandrov, but he’s not ready for the NHL yet either.

Agree Rommel … doesn’t sound like CJ is too happy. Although I’m sure any coach would want to have access to every possible available player. Maybe this will force him to give Kampfer or Bartkowski a shot, I thought both seemed to outplay Hunwick in the pre-season.

“…Our guys have to move the puck a little better. That’s the way I would tell you right now that we’re going to have to compensate with his loss.”

Did I miss something, or is The Claude a little delusional as to what Hunwick provided this season. We all know that he had the CAPABILITY to carry the puck up the ice, but he didn’t consistantly do that by any stretch of the imigination. Instead, most of the time I saw forced passes, turnovers, chips up the boards, or the ever present reverse behind the net to his partner. Yes, the whole D-corp has to pick up its puck moving/carrying, but lets not pretend that Hunwick did that a whole lot this season. Ability to do so and actually doing so are two different things.

I think where the B’s will miss Hunwick’s speed the most is getting back on odd man rushes. Althought without his ill timed pinches or him standing flat footed at the offensive blue line trying to decide what the right play is, there may be a few less of those in the future.

Not to rag of Hunny, he just didn’t ever get back to what he showed he could do in 08-09. He’s young though, hopefully for him a change of scenery will work out for him and happily for us that resurgance, if it happens, will take place out west.